Her old Ayah: the transcolonial significance of the Indian domestic worker in India and Australia (original) (raw)
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Cultural Dynamics, 2022
This article examines interracial gendered care-work through the figure of the ayah (maid) serving white families in India from the late-eighteenth to the twenty-first century. Historical and anthropological scholarships on domestic labor in India remain self-contained fields, and mostly focus on middle-class Indian households. Our comparative study offers insights into the racialized romanticization of the ayah through a trans-temporal approach combining archival work (for British imperial households in the past) with ethnographic research (for Euro-American expatriate households in the present). While exploring the parallels in colonial and contemporary domestic dynamics, and the intertwining of interracial anxieties and sentimentalization, we pay close attention to the subjectivities of Indian ayahs and their changing labor roles.
Mrs Browne and the Bengalis: An Early Transcolonial Story of Domestic Service, 1816-1821.
Asian Studies: The Twelfth International Convention of Asia Scholars (ICAS 12) June 2022, Volume 1, 2022
In 1816, the Indian-born Sydney merchant and landowner, William Browne, brought a group of Indian servants into the New South Wales colony to work for him. Three years later the colonial governor Lachlan Macquarie would hold a magisterial inquiry into the alleged mistreatment of these workers, and the workers were then sent back to India. This episode in Australian history is regarded as one of the very earliest of the fleeting and failed attempts to experiment with indentured Indian labour. In this paper, I draw upon the 1819 testimonies of Browne’s workers – reproduced as evidence for an 1828 British inquiry into slavery under the East India Company – to focus on the key role played by women, including Browne’s wife Sophia. Approaching the story from the perspective of women’s labour illuminates the often overlooked importance of carework in colonialism. This paper is part of an ARC Discovery project, Ayahs and Amahs: Transcolonial Servants in Australia and Britain 1780-1945, led by Victoria Haskins, with Claire Lowrie and Swapna Banerjee.
‘Ayahs, Wet-nurses and Memsahibs in Colonial India’
Indian Journal of Gender Studies, 2009
'Colonial Domesticities, Contentious Interactions : Ayahs, Wet-Nurses and Memsahibs in Colonial India' This important, pioneering paper examines the history of domestic servants in British India. It explores the race/class/gender dynamics inside the colonial nursery. Nineteenth and early Twentieth century colonial writings projected the colonial home in British India as a microcosm of the empire. However, as this paper argues, the memsahibs’ imperial authority was often undermined by the dynamics of domestic relationships inside the home. The complexities of daily encounters between white mistress and 'native' female servants (viz. the ayah and the wet-nurse), which cut across boundaries of race and class, often threatened to render the colonial home an ambivalent—and even contested—space. This paper draws upon a range of sources, including colonial housekeeping journals,; medical handbooks written by colonial physicians; memsahibs' memoirs, diaries and letters, as well as colonial newspapers,and journals. KEYWORDS: ayahs; colonial household; colonial nursery, cross-racial gendered interactions; memsahib-ayah relationship; wet-nurses; medical handbooks, housekeeping manuals, colonial childhood
Letters from India: Englishwomen's Tales in the Early Empire
This essay attempts to make a case for using personal letters written by Englishwomen during the early decades of colonial rule as an archival source for studying early colonial India. It scrutinizes three primary sources: Mrs. Eliza Fay's "Original Letters from India," the anonymously authored "Letters from Madras," and Miss Emily Eden's "Letters from India." These letters, though seemingly private, shed light on the socio-cultural fabric, everyday life, and personal experiences within colonial India. The letters reveal recurrent themes of racial prejudices, views on native habits, customs, and religious practices, often coloured with colonial stereotypes. They also highlight Englishwomen's engagement with the evolving religious and societal dynamics and their attempts to understand and reform local customs, albeit from a colonial standpoint. The essay also attempts to explore the underlying power dynamics and racial tensions, emphasizing the colonial control manifesting in domestic interactions. It critically examines the depiction of native agency and questions the stereotypes surrounding native servants and women.
Indian Journal of Post-Colonial Literatures, 2001
Rethinking feminism from a post-colonial perspective affords illuminating insights into the ways in which women construct their subjectivity in contemporary India. What is interesting to note is that the notions regarding womanhood that the women of India share have a history of not more than one hundred years. A close examination into the genealogy of the 'woman' would reveal that the facts of the typical Indian woman-the Bharathiya Nari-were defined during the British colonial period and do not in fact bear traces of an ancient civilization, running back to more than four thousand years.